The problem of confidence:

Security and insecurity are functions of the self. Successful leaders help others find confidence, assuming they want to find it.

The power of confidence:

Confident people:

Dare

Learn

Stretch

Take on new challenges.

Confidence takes you further than insecurity.

The process of confidence:

Joel Garfinkle responded with the calm voice of experience when I asked how leaders can build confidence in others. “Ask them how they overcame an obstacle or succeeded in the past. Everyone has achieved something.”

Joel’s been running behind his daughter’s bicycle teaching her to ride. “Even a small children can ride faster and longer than dads can run.”

On the other end of the phone I smiled and bobbed my head, as if Joel could see. Been there done that.

Learning to ride a bike is one of life’s great accomplishments. Joel’s daughter, like many of us, has a confidence-building experience in her past – something to build on. The more I remembered mine, the better I felt.

The platform of confidence:

“Ask how they succeeded in the past,” Joel continued, “What did they do? How did they feel?”

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40 thoughts on “10 Strategies for Building Confidence in Others”

I think the most important way leaders drain the confidence of others is when they are inconsistent and inauthentic; when they do not follow-through adequately, or hold up their end of an initiative. They destroy the trust that others may have had in them, and undermine people’s self-confidence as well.

Gynedoc1,
You’re right on the mark with inconsistency and lack of authenticity being damaging and trust-destroying. I would add that some of the biggest confidence draining faux pas involve leaders setting their employees up for failure. Usually, it’s the unintentional result of overestimating an employee’s skills or underestimating a project’s difficulty. That’s why it’s so important to keep the lines of communication open between managers and employees. If a manager has miscalculated, he or she needs to know right away to allow time for making the necessary adjustments.

Dear Dan,
Suggestions to build confidence in others are excellent. Taking personal accountability is the key to gain confidence. Leaders allow people to take decisions. They delegates and trust them. The process creates relationship based on trust. This trust creates confidence. Fear is almost absent here. But leaders drain the confidence in others when they promote rewards and acknowledge the incompetent and fakers. This creates the environment that encourages personal preference over merit and performance. I learned to have confidence by not expecting reward or recognition. I believed in my effort and goal. I measured my effort with my goal. I think when you have bigger goal; expectation is enemy to your goal. Even expecting promotion or position is also an enemy. You need to shine in such a way that it automatically brightens the surroundings. Instilling confidence into others is a matter of setting your own example. I strongly believe that actions speak louder than words.

I always look for a personal nugget. This time, I’m taking, “Trust creates confidence.” Thats clear, concise, and powerful.

I can remember times when I didn’t get what I expected and realize how that took the wind out of my sails… I love the idea that we get further by focusing on the goal rather than expecting promotions etc.

Ajay,
True intrinsic motivation is almost always more powerful than extrinsic incentives. The question is what to do when someone’s life experiences have taught them to rely on external validation? The most skilled leaders I’ve known can walk the line between reinforcing a need for external validation and helping an unconfident subordinate become more assured of their abilities through the use of genuine acknowledgement and recognition.

Most of my experience is with students, though I did own a private school for fourteen years and had a wonderful staff of teachers to encourage.

Students and children look up to us. They notice our successes because, frankly, that is what we enjoy sharing. We think we are being positive role models by demonstrating success…and we are… up to a point.

I’ve found it most effective to share my failures with others. Yeah, I look confident and successful now, but I tell them about the times when I made huge mistakes. I recount stories about times I was filled with fear. I have the courage to share embarrassing details. Then I expain how I got through it.

I have a particularly humiliating story that I share with teens about how I tried out for cheerleading SIX times. How many teens today try out for something more than twice? But then I show them a picture of me in my old fashioned cheerleading uniform doing the splits. The sixth time I made it!

People will fail. They will be afraid. I did. I was. Confidence comes after the failure. Be brave enough to reaveal your failures to others. THAT will grow their confidence more than your success.

Dan, I love #6, “Find potential on the fringe.” Is there anything more rewarding than noticing a so-called second-stringer and watching them take off because of a little confidence boost they received when you believed in them? There is a lot of untapped power on the fringe just waiting to be unleashed!

The best advice I ever heard about feeling confident is: “look them in the eye and smile” it is extremely hard not to feel confident when you do that. BTW it also works on the phone. (not the eye part :-))

Larry,
I’ve heard few better arguments for why face-to-face conversation is so much more powerful than emails, texts, or even phone calls. Nonverbal communication is such an integral part of the communication process that we can’t afford to ignore it.

Confidence is a critical component to success in any endeavor. The hurdle many leaders do not want to come to terms with is that it is their problem if their workers do not feel confident. Often times leaders will just pass this off as a deficiency of the worker and do nothing to help improve confidence. As has already been said, trust between leader and worker must be present or real confidence does not occur. The question then is how does one build trust among their peers and subordinates? I am curious to hear everyone’s thoughts.

The ability to instill confidence in others is a wonderful gift. I must admit that I’ve worked with some who seemed to completely resist confidence. However, I’ve seen more rise up when leadership engages in confidence building activities.

Re: Trust building… one important thought is about whose team are you on. When people believe you are on their team, they are free to trust. When people believe we are in it for ourselves they question our motives and trust wains.

Mike,
Trust is definitely the bedrock of any successful work relationship (whether lateral or vertical in nature). A few steps leaders can take to start earning their team members’ trust include asking people for their opinion (and really listening to it), delegating authority when possible, refusing to participate in gossip, promoting the accomplishments of both the team and individual team members, giving subordinates the opportunity to take risks and grow, and focusing on failure as a learning opportunity.

I would like to add 2 more strategies to the list of 10 good strategies to build confidence in others.’Encourage people to act in the right way through a technique of demonstration’ and ‘Celebrate small successes’ can work better to boost the confidence level.

I did observe the sales team getting motivated by a regional manager [35 years ago and still a proven technique] by allowing each team member to describe his own experience while fetching a good order or facing a difficult customer as a practical way of boosting the morale and confidence level of all.

I see in your comment the idea of honoring others by allowing them to talk about their successes. Leaders may be reluctant to let others “brag” about success because others less successful may be jealous. I think that’s a self-defeating behavior.

Dr. Asher,
How important those little successes are… After all, how many huge windfalls are simply an accumulation of all those little successes? A great many, I bet. And you’re also spot on with modeling desired behavior, of course. Humans excel at nothing if not imitation.

What a great article! All of your steps reflect the fact that when you show confidence in others you are creating an environment where they will develop confidence within themselves. Since confidence is earned, giving it to your team is a gift from a true leader.

Putting memories of achievements into one’s mind is certainly a good way of building confidence. If someone is in a positive mindset, they will have a much greater chance of success. It reminds me of that old adage – whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.

People always have resources to make thing happen. We can help them re-ignite their confidence with a few good questions that help them see for themselves that they are capable of being confident.

One of the tools I use is to ask the person (or team) in need of a confidence boost. ‘What pleases you most in your work – in the past and recently?’ I then say, ‘Tell me more’, and ‘How did you do that?’ While gently steering them away from any negatives about performance I feedback to them the purposeful things they say.

Skipping any problem analysis I then I ask them, ‘Thinking of going forward, suppose the issue you face gets better, what will be happening?’ And, ‘What will you be doing to make it happen?’

I believe a common mistake that people make is tying confidence to an outcome rather than the process to create the outcome. When I close the sale, I feel like a rockstar and my confidence is high until I get a No and then my confidence is low and I feel like a failure. Coaching confidence requires us to take a look at the steps involved in getting an outcome and recognizing the things we are doing right. Coaching confidence requires us to let go of the outcome and focus on improving the one or two steps in the process to achieve our desired results. When we desire to improve our performance and focus on increasing our average performance on a daily basis we will recognize more of the smaller wins that lead to our desired result. Recognizing the smaller wins coaches our confidence because we realize that we are winning along the way.